UNIFIL Base, Naqoura
I was invited to visit a friend of mine in the UNIFIL—the UN Peacekeeping Mission in the Area at its base of Naqoura, an hour's drive from the Southern Lebanese city of Tyre, which sits in a UN controlled zone on the border of Israel—on the firing line as my friend says. To enter the area you need clearance from UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army, the latter I only learned when I showed up at the check point and the Army guards questioned what my intentions were. Usually any guard will let you in without the extra clearance if you hold a UN ID. I had my UNRWA ID with me and so did my friend visiting from the UNAMA mission in Afghanistan.
It’s worth mentioning with Lebanese guards that all depends on the mood of the individual. Apparently that day, that guard decided I should not enter without an extra clearance. He was ranting about a big sign on the side of the road saying non non-Lebanese individual—in all honesty I had no idea what he was referring to. We sat and waited and pleaded and called numbers of people to try and get us through. Eventually a plain clothes officer came and asked what the problem was—we explained our situation, he looked at our badges and told us to wait a minute. 5 minutes later he came to us, returned our IDs and said we could enter—clearly this man was in a good mood and overturned the other guy’s moody decision. can enter the area without clearanceand then went to do some site seeing in the area. The drive into Naqqoura was gorgeous, winding along turquoise waters of the Mediterranean and touring the UNIFIL base was interesting and not at all reminiscent of the UNAMA base I had lived on in Afghanistan.
Afterwards we decided to drive on to nearby Qana for a visit.
Qana, South Lebanon
Jesus was rumored to have hid in Qana and this is the biblical site where he was said to have performed the miracle of turning water into wine. It’s a serene location on a hillside overlooking a valley of goat herders. A cave is tucked away and outside of it is an area where Jesus is said to have spoken to his disciples. Sites for Christians seeking refuge from persecution are spread throughout Lebanon, but it is rare that one should find a site for which a miracle and spiritual leader was said to have spent time.
Oddly enough, I stumbled across this site en route to something else Qana is known for—the 1996 massacre of 106 Palestinians seeking refuge in a UN compound operated by Fiji soldiers working with UNIFIL—the UN Peace Keeping Operation based in the South of Lebanon.
During what was known as, “Operation Grapes of Wrath”, Israel dropped bombs on Southern Lebanon in strikes against Hezballah. The conflict intensified and thousands of Lebanese civilians sought to flee the area and find safe refuge from the fighting. By 14 April, 745 people were occupying the United Nations compound at Qana. More than 800 were there on April 18.
Beginning with the second day of combat Israel had been retaliating within 10 minutes directly at any source of fire discovered by reconnaissance. This tactic was widely discussed in Israeli media, and well known to the Hezbollah fighters and Lebanese citizens.
According to report, on April 18, Hezbollah fighters fired two or three Katyusha rockets and between five and eight mortars at Israeli soldiers near the Red Line (the northern limits of the "security zone") from positions about 220 meters southwest and 350 meters southeast of the United Nations compound. 15 minutes later an Israeli unit responded by shelling the area with M-109A2 155 mm guns. According to the Israeli military, thirty-eight shells were fired, two-thirds of them equipped with proximity fuses, an anti-personnel mechanism that causes the weapon to explode above the ground. As a result of the shelling, 106 civilians died, with more wounded.
A video recording made by a UNIFIL soldier of Force Mobil Reserve (FMR) showed an unmanned drone and two helicopters in the vicinity at the time of the shelling. Uri Dromi, an Israeli government spokesman, confirmed there was a drone in the area, but stated that it did not detect civilians in the compound. The IDF initially and repeatedly claimed that no drone was flying in the area. The truth only emerged when a video filmed by a Norwegian UN soldier of FMR at a nearby hill clearly showed the presence of a drone. The Israelis were aware of their actions at a location which had been UN headquarters for so many years.
I had wanted to visit this site ever since reading Robert Fisk’s book, Pity the Nation. I feel that the souls of those lost to senseless acts of violence should be remembered in some way. Upon entering Qana, in addition to learning of the site where Jesus had lived, I learned of something else I had been ignorant of. Upon asking a man as to where I could find the site of the massacre, he responded, “Which one--the old or new one?” I had no idea there was more than one, so my taxi driver told him, the old one.
As we drove we came to a stone which had directions to the old and new massacre sites, all was written in Arabic. We first visited the new site, 25 grave markers and pictures of men, women and children killed in an Israeli air strike on a building in which they had been seeking refuge during the 2006 war.
Onwards we drove to the old site. Remnants of the UN compound stood and part of the black UN sign could still be read. A parked Israeli tank sat next to the remnants of a building. A man, who’s name was Jimmy (so he said), came with photos and a history of the tragedy that took place in 1996. After having lived through these events, people can become desensitized to what they are experiencing and it was clear that this was the case with Jimmy. He described in Arabic details of the shelling and fires and then showed graphic images of the victims—body parts and mutilations. As he showed the images I physically began to feel ill and tears came to my eyes without my even realizing I was about to burst into tears. He flipped through the photos and all I kept thinking as he showed how they had died was that these were people, these were mothers and fathers and children and they had deserved better. No one even seems to know what happened there and they died in such a manner that you would not wish it on the worst of your enemies.
I had to walk away to catch my breath. I’ve found that I’ve had to do that too many times here in Lebanon.
